Peg Soldiers Progress

My Post-Stroke Attempt At A Wooden-Alternative Toy Soldier...

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What Are 'Peg Soldiers'?

A long while ago I got really into making wooden peg figures. These are - as the name suggests - little 'dolls' made out of traditional wooden clothes pegs. Initially these were intended as Christmas ornaments - like tiny versions of the traditional German nut cracker soldier figures, but I found that these were also ideal for tabletop wargaming using H. G. Well's 'Little Wars' rules.

Above: The traditional cloths peg has long been used as a way to make simple 'doll' figures for children. Their shape - with 'shoulders' and a 'head' - lend themselves to some very easy adaption to little figures. This was my starting point for my traditional toy soldiers.

Above: One of my early peg soldiers. You can see here that there isn't much by way of adapting the basic peg, just the addition of a 'hat' (an off cut of the peg), a gun (made from a lolly stick) and a base. Everything else was simple painted on detail... Seemples! ;)

The look of these little wooden toy soldiers ideally suited the Edwardian theme of this game and as they were roughly equivalent to 54mm scale they fitted into the game very nicely...

However, fast forward to the year I had my stroke I suddenly realised that there were a few of my model making hobbies that I would no longer be able to do with the ease that I did before. Things like fine free-hand brush painting of elaborate details and wood carving were out of the question - at least to the degree that I had been able to do them before.

Above: Typical of me, things all started to get a lot more complicated as I got into the hobby! My simple builds started to become a lot more complicated carvings and sculpts and even the painting became a lot more elaborate...

Above: My level of freehand brush painting started to become increasingly elaborate for what were supposed to be simple 'caricatures'! All this became unsustainable after my stroke.

It was a shame as I was really fond of doing my peg figures and people seemed to like them.

Giving Peg Soldiers A Second Go...

OK, so I've kinda replaced the intricate scratch model making techniques that I used to do with 3D printing. Over the past couple of years I've tried making various different types of the models that I used to make by designing and printing 3D alternatives instead. This cut out some of the fiddly modelling which just left me with working out how to simplify the post production phase in a way that I am now able to cope with.

Above: I've replicated the peg figure design in 3D using TinkerCAD to model the parts. This technique sorta kills two birds with one stone; it circumvents the woodworking element of the construction (which I now find tricky) AND it make it easier to duplicate most used shapes repeatedly, saving time.

Above: I just print the components out on my FDM printer at medium quality as subsequent painting will hide most of the imperfections. This makes printing quicker, especially when I am doing a bulk amount of parts. (I did consider printing using my resin printer for ultimate quality, but this is a costly, messy and time consuming technique for models that don't really have to be that precise or detailed.)

Above: The 3D technique for model component making also makes it easier to produce custom accessory parts. Again, these can be saved as a 'parts library' for reuse, saving time.

This led me to wondering if I could start making my peg soldiers again, but instead of working with wood and sculping specialised parts using clay I was curious to see if I could use my new found skill (I use the word skill loosely) in 3D designing with TinkerCAD and 3D FDM printing with my Flashforge printer.

I knew I would probably not be able to achieve the same level of detailed model making and painting that I used to, but I thought I might try to see if I could simplify some of the work and still get a satisfying end product. So I undertook a test project to make a couple of 3D printed peg soldiers.

Skirting The Issue

Obviously, I accepted that I would have to 'dumb down' my expectations and find easier ways to represent complicated details that I would have hand crafted or hand painted before. A lot of this was done when planning the design of my toy soldiers, and I simply decided to overlook any detail on a historical uniform that would not translate well into my new simplified style of peg soldiers.

Above: Coming up with a simpler design for any uniform for my peg soldiers is now the priority as I am no longer capable of freehand painting any overly intricate decorations. This means either finding historical uniforms that were fairly simple (like this 1880s Texan Army Dragoon example) OR 'dumbing down' complex designs and omitting anything that seems too 'fussy' - while at the same time trying to maintain the 'spirit' of the uniform's look.

Peg soldiers at their heart are already a caricature or a slightly cartoonish version of a historical figure, but now I would have to be even more loose with my interpretation of actual historic military uniforms and gear. The positive thing here is people kinda accept the 'toy soldier' aesthetic and don't tend to be too annul about small details - it's more about the general overall look. 

For example, whereas before my stroke I would have been happy to freehand paint things like belts, straps, piping and badge now I would try as best I could to add these things as surface detail in order to help me paint these things easily. Badges, would obviously suffer the most and would become purely symbolic additions with little real authentic detail... And so on.

Above: The model parts printed they are then primed in a base colour ready for painting...

Above: Accessories like belts and straps and buckles were added to the basic model after 3D printing using tape or very thin plastic strips. In this way it was then a lot easier for me to paint these details neatly as the acted as guides and helped me keep lines straight! Unfortunately, painting the facial details still had to be done by hand and while these cartoonish features are simple enough they still cause me a lot of problems because of my wobbly hand.

Well the first couple of test figures went off OK. I printed the using my FDM printer at medium detail figuring I didn't have to worry too much about layer lines and heavy coats of paint would hide most of the print imperfections. I did miss working with wood, but I just don't trust myself to work with sharp knives in order to carve nowadays!

Above: My current work around for detailed freehand painting is OVERPAINTING. I simply repaint over anything that had 'gone outside the line'...*Repeatedly*!!! Until I eventually achieve what looks kinda like a smooth paint job. If only there was an easier way (foreshadowing)!

Painting - as I say - has become a simplified scheme representative of the original uniform, but not entirely accurate. Some short cuts have been taken and some bits have been left out in order to create my 3D 'cartoon' version of the figure.

Afterthoughts!

Well, job done. But there was still time to mull over what I could do better the next time. The 3D modelling part was a success but the painting but was still troublesome... But then...

I just happened to be doing some waterslide transfer decals on a model car this morning and I suddenly wondered 'couldn't I do some of the peg soldier decoration as decals'? 

I had looked into printing decals for other projects before and found out that you could buy waterslide decal paper for use on an inkjet or laser printer. The downside is that the paper is quite expensive and the process for designing and printing decals is quite wasteful unless you want to print large amounts of particular emblems.

Filling an A4 sheet to the max with decal designs isn't exactly feasible when I am only doing a couple of each peg soldier and the same is true of sticker paper. Then I came across a gadget called CIRCUT over at the Hobbycraft website.

This is a vinyl sticker cutting machine and comes in a small size variant for short run projects!

This may very well solve my small detail problem as I could simply create stickers for facial features, badges, stripes and all manner of decoration, negating my freehand painting nightmares! LOL

It's worth looking into for my next peg soldier experiment.